CONNECTING YOUR COMPUTER

You have a new computer and are ready to set it up. While this may
seem like an overwhelming and difficult task, it is actually quite simple. It
doesn't matter what brand of computer you have because most computers
are set up in a similar way.
If you're setting up a newly purchased computer that's still in the box,
you'll probably find a how-to guide in the packaging that includes step-
by-step details. However, even if it didn't include instructions you can
still set up the computer in a few easy steps. In this lesson, we'll go
through the different steps needed to set up a typical computer.
Unpack the monitor and computer case from the box. Remove any
plastic covering or protective tape. Place the monitor and computer case
where you want on a desk or work area.
Think about where you want your desk or work area to be located, and
where you want your monitor, computer case, and other hardware to be.
Be sure to place your computer case in an area that is well ventilated and
that has good air flow. This will help to prevent overheating.
CONNECTING YOUR COMPUTER TO THE INTERNET
 The easiest solution for connecting the PC to wireless Internet is the wireless
solution.
 To use the wi-fi, you must already have an internet router/modem (allowing
transmission of information) these boxes play the role of the"sender".
This type of equipment usually offer a throughput of 54 Mbps (802.11g),
with a range of about 100 meters, but there are other standards.
 Adequate for surfing and chatting, but a bit limited for download. It is
possible to connect multiple PCs to a router, but with a necessarily limited
flow with multiple users.
 THE USB WI-FI KEY
This is the simplest solution, and very inexpensive, you can buy them in
supermarkets and on the Internet.
Latest keys can provide a throughput of 300 Mbps maximum (802.11n).
Must purchase a key corresponding to the standard of your router (802.11g is the
current standard and most common).
Ppp(point to point protocol)
 The Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet (PPPoE) is a network
protocol for encapsulating PPP frames inside Ethernetframes. It appeared
shortly after the year 2000, in the context of the boom of the DSL as the
solution for tunneling packets over the DSL connection to
the ISP's IP network, and from there to the rest of the Internet. A 2005
networking book noted that "Most DSL providers use PPPoE, which
provides authentication, encryption, and compression."[1] Typical use of
PPPoE involves leveraging the PPP facilities for authenticating the user with
a username and password, predominately via the PAP protocol
DSL(digital subscriber line)
 The term DSL modem is technically used to describe a modem which
connects to a single computer, through an Ethernet Port, USB port, or is
installed in a computer PCI slot. The more common DSL router which
combines the function of a DSL modem and a home router, is a standalone
device which can be connected to multiple computers through
multiple Ethernet ports or an integral wireless access point. Also called
a residential gateway, a DSL router usually manages the connection and
sharing of the DSL service in a home or small office network.
Cable modem
 A cable modem is a device that enables you to hook up your PC to a
local cable TV line and receive data at about 1.5 Mbps. This data rate far
exceeds that of the prevalent 28.8 and 56 Kbps telephone modems and the
up to 128 Kbps of Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) and is about
the data rate available to subscribers of Digital Subscriber Line (DSL)
telephone service. A cable modem can be added to or integrated with a set-
top box that provides your TV set with channels for Internet access. In most
cases, cable modems are furnished as part of the cable access service and are
not purchased directly and installed by the subscriber.
How a modem makes its connectioins
 A modem (modulator-demodulator) is a device that modulates signals to
encode digital information and demodulates signals to decode the
transmitted information.
 The goal is to produce a signal that can be transmitted easily and decoded to
reproduce the original digital data.
 Modems can be used with any means of transmitting analog signals,
from light emitting diodes to radio.
 A common type of modem is one that turns the digital data of
a computer into modulated electrical signal for transmission over telephone
lines and demodulated by another modem at the receiver side to recover the
digital data.
 Modems are generally classified by the amount of data they can send in a
given unit of time, usually expressed in bits per second (symbolbit/s,
sometimes abbreviated "bps"), or bytes per second (symbol B/s).
 Modems can also be classified by their symbol rate, measured inbaud. The
baud unit denotes symbols per second, or the number of times per second the
modem sends a new signal.
 For example, the ITU V.21 standard used audio frequency shift keying with
two possible frequencies, corresponding to two distinct symbols (or one bit
per symbol), to carry 300 bits per second using 300 baud. By contrast, the
original ITU V.22 standard, which could transmit and receive four distinct
symbols (two bits per symbol), transmitted 1,200 bits by sending 600
symbols per second (600 baud) using phase shift keying.
HOW INTERNET ENHANCED TV WORK
 To understand DSL, you first need to know a couple of things about a
normal telephone line -- the kind that telephone professionals call POTS, for
Plain Old Telephone Service. One of the ways that POTS makes the most of
the telephone company's wires and equipment is by limiting the frequencies
that the switches, telephones and other equipment will carry. Human voices,
speaking in normal conversational tones, can be carried in a frequency range
of 0 to 3,400 Hertz (cycles per second -- see How Telephones Work for a
great demonstration of this). This range of frequencies is tiny. For example,
compare this to the range of most stereo speakers, which cover from roughly
20 Hertz to 20,000 Hertz. And the wires themselves have the potential to
handle frequencies up to several million Hertz in most cases.

HOW IDTV WORKS

 The use of such a small portion of the wire's total bandwidth is historical --
remember that the telephone system has been in place, using a pair of copper
wires to each home, for about a century. By limiting the frequencies carried
over the lines, the telephone system can pack lots of wires into a very small
space without worrying about interference between lines. Modern equipment
 that sends digital rather than analog data can safely use much more of the
telephone line's capacity. DSL does just that.

HOW WIRELESS CONNECTION AND WI-FI WORK

 Imagine for a moment if all the wireless connections in the world were
instantly replaced by cables. You'd have cables stretching through the air
from every radio in every home hundreds of miles back to the transmitters.
 You'd have wires reaching from every cellphone to every phone
mast. Radio-controlled cars would disappear too, replaced by yet more
cables. You couldn't step out of the door without tripping over cables.
 You couldn't fly a plane through the sky without getting tangled up. If you
peered through your window, you'd see nothing at all but a cats-cradle of
wires. That, then, is the brilliance of wireless: it does away with all those
cables, leaving our lives simple, uncluttered, and free! Let's take a closer
look at how it works.
 If you have wireless Internet access at home, you probably have a little box
called a router that plugs into your telephone socket. This kind of router is a
bit like a sophisticatedmodem: it's a standalone computer whose job is to
relay connections to and from the Internet. At home, you might use a router
to connect several computers to the Internet at once (saving on the need for
several separate modems). In other words, the router does two jobs: it
creates a wireless computer network, linking all your computers together,
and it also gives all your machines a shared gateway to the Internet.
 You can connect a router to all your different computers using ordinary
network-connecting cables (for the technically minded, these are called RJ-
45, Cat 5, or Ethernet cables). This creates what's called a LAN (local area
network) linking the machines together. A computer network is a very
 orderly affair, more like an organized committee meeting, with carefully
agreed rules of behavior, than a free-for-all cocktail party. The machines on
the network have to be hooked up in a standard way and they communicate
in a very orderly fashion.

HOW TO ACCES THE INTERNET A SATELLITE CONNECTION

 Satellite Internet access is Internet access provided through

communications satellites. Modern satellite Internet service is typically
provided to users through geostationary satellites that can offer high data
speeds,[2] with newer satellites using Ka band to achieve downstream data
speeds up to 50 Mbps
 Satellite Internet generally relies on three primary components: a satellite
in geostationary orbit (sometimes referred to as a geosynchronous Earth
orbit, or GEO), a number of ground stations known as gateways that relay
Internet data to and from the satellite via radio waves (microwave), and a
VSAT (very-small-aperture terminal) dish antenna with a transceiver,
located at the subscriber's premises. Other components of a satellite Internet
system include a modem at the user end which links the user's network with
the transceiver, and a centralized network operations center (NOC) for
monitoring the entire system. Working in concert with a broadband gateway,
the satellite operates a Star network topology where all network
communication passes through the network's hub processor, which is at the
center of the star. With this configuration, the number of remote VSATs that
can be connected to the hub is virtually limitless.

HOW A CELL PHONE ACCES THE INTERNET

 More than ever, the Internet is being accessed by portable devices such as
tablets and cell phones. The convenience of hand-held devices brings the
Internet into airports, onto the subway, into your bed and even, sometimes,
onto airplanes. Among younger users, Web browsing is more commonly
done with a phone than with a computer. While this kind of connectivity
may offer unlimited distraction for your employees, it can also make them
more accessible and more productive. The highly portable Internet comes
thanks to advances in smartphone devices, advances in the mobile network
and developments in how content is delivered over the internet.

CELLULAR NETWORK

 Cell phones are called cell phones because the network they connect to is a
system of cells, each cell defined by a tower at its center.
 These cells are then connected to the network by communication with
satellites.
 Through this network information is passed to and from a wirelessly enabled
device.
 Early cell phones passed only voice data, but just as your telephone and
cable lines can carry any kind of data, a cell phone network can carry any
kind of data as well. Thus, a cell phone network can carry any digital
information including text, encoded pictures and video.

SMARTPHONES

 Early Internet-enabled phones had tiny screens and virtually no graphical

capabilities. Internet access was used primarily for the delivery of email. A
 cell phone user could also check sports scores or get headline news feeds.
Longer articles would have been nearly impossible to read and pictures or
video were unavailable. Not only could the network not carry data fast
enough, cell phones also couldn't display it. With increases in broadband
cellular Internet access came parallel improvements in cell phone devices.
Cell phones evolved into smartphones which, with more advanced display
and interactive features, were more suited to the improved networks.

HOW NEWS GROUP WORKS

 Although most of the hype and attention that the Internet gets today is
about e-commerce and business, there are two main reasons that most of us
use it: communication and information. We rely on the Internet to send e-
mail and instant messages, andsearch through the World Wide Web to find
information for work or play.
 One source of both information and communication is newsgroups. A
newsgroup is a continuous public discussion about a particular topic. You
can join a newsgroup at any time to become part of a huge conversation
between hundreds or even thousands of people.
 Newsgroups originated in North Carolina back in 1979. That's when a
couple of Duke University students hooked a few computers together to start
an exchange of information with other UNIX users. Just down the road at
the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, another student was writing
software that could be used to distribute the information. Eventually, the
work of these three students became the first bastion of newsgroups,
termed Usenet.
  In this edition of HowStuffWorks, you will learn the difference between
newsgroups and other types of electronic communications. You will also
learn how newsgroups work, where to find them and how to subscribe.

HOW USENET WORKS

 Usenet News is a distributed computer conferencing system. Conferences in
Usenet News are called newsgroups, and messages are called articles.
 The basic principle of Usenet News is that a local server handles most of the
functionality. Usenet News standardizes two variants of the NNTP
protocols: One for communication between adjacent servers, one for
communication between a client and a server. Each server can download as
much as it wants of what is available on any of the adjacent servers.
 Loop control is handled both by a trace list and a list of the Message-IDs of
received messages stored by each server, so that the server can reject the
same message coming back again. The procedure for distribution of news
can be compared to pouring water onto a flat surface; the water flows out in
all directions
HOW INTERNET CHAT AND INSTANT MESSAGING WORKS
 Instant messages - Send notes back and forth with a friend who is online
 Chat - Create a chat room with friends or co-workers
 Web links - Share links to your favorite Web sites
 Video - Send and view videos, and chat face to face with friends
 Images - Look at an image stored on your friend's computer
 Sounds - Play sounds for your friends
 Files - Share files by sending them directly to your friends
 Talk - Use the Internet instead of a phone to actually talk with friends
 Streaming content - Real-time or near-real-time stock quotes and news
  Mobile capabilities - Send instant messages from your cell phone
In this article, you will learn about the history of instant messaging and how it
works. You will also learn what the major IM programs are, what makes them
different from each other and what the future holds for IM.

Network
A network is a group of two or more computer systems linked together. There are
many types of computer networks, including:
 local-area networks (LANs) : The computers are geographically
close together (that is, in the same building).
 wide-area networks (WANs) : The computers are farther apart and
are connected by telephone lines or radio waves.
 campus-area networks (CANs): The computers are within a limited
geographic area, such as a campus or military base.
 metropolitan-area networks MANs): A data network designed for a
town or city.
 home-area networks (HANs): A network contained within a user's
home that connects a person's digital devices.

What is Internet
 The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that
use the standard Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to link several billion
devices worldwide.
 It is a network of networks that consists of millions of private, public,
academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope,
linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless, and optical networking
technologies.
 The Internet carries an extensive range of information resources and
services, such as the inter-linked hypertext documents and applications of
the World Wide Web (WWW), the infrastructure to support email, and peer-
to-peer networks for file sharing and telephony.
 History of Internet:
 Many concepts and debates on technology, which shaped the Internet, date
back to research commissioned by the United States government in the
1960s to build robust, fault-tolerant communication via computer networks.
 This work evolved into efforts in the United Kingdom and France, which led
to the primary precursor network, the ARPANET, in the United States. In
the 1980s, the work of Tim Berners-Lee, in the United Kingdom on the
World Wide Web, theorized the fact that protocols link hypertext documents
into a working system, hence marking the beginning the modern Internet.
 From the early 1990s, the network experienced sustained exponential growth
as generations of institutional, personal, and mobile computers were
connected to it.
 The funding of a new U.S. backbone by the National Science Foundation in
the 1980s, as well as private funding for other commercial backbones, led to
worldwide participation in the development of new networking technologies,
and the merger of many networks.

Network Interface Layer

o The Network Interface layer (also called the Network Access layer) is
responsible for placing TCP/IP packets on the network medium and
receiving TCP/IP packets off the network medium.
o TCP/IP was designed to be independent of the network access method,
frame format, and medium. In this way, TCP/IP can be used to connect
differing network types.
o These include LAN technologies such as Ethernet and Token Ring and
WAN technologies such as X.25 and Frame Relay.
o Independence from any specific network technology gives TCP/IP the
ability to be adapted to new technologies such as Asynchronous Transfer
Mode (ATM).
 The Network Interface layer encompasses the Data Link and Physical layers
of the OSI model. Note that the Internet layer does not take advantage of
sequencing and acknowledgment services that might be present in the Data-
Link layer.
 An unreliable Network Interface layer is assumed, and reliable
communications through session establishment and the sequencing and
acknowledgment of packets is the responsibility of the Transport layer.
 Transport Layer
The Transport layer (also known as the Host-to-Host Transport layer) is
responsible for providing the Application layer with session and datagram
communication services.
The core protocols of the Transport layer are Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)
and the User Datagram Protocol (UDP).
 TCP provides a one-to-one, connection-oriented, reliable communications
service. TCP is responsible for the establishment of a TCP connection, the
sequencing and acknowledgment of packets sent, and the recovery of
packets lost during transmission.
 UDP provides a one-to-one or one-to-many, connectionless, unreliable
communications service.
 UDP is used when the amount of data to be transferred is small (such as the
data that would fit into a single packet), when the overhead of establishing a
TCP connection is not desired or when the applications or upper layer
protocols provide reliable delivery.
The Transport layer encompasses the responsibilities of the OSI Transport layer
and some of the responsibilities of the OSI Session layer.

Application Layer
The Application layer provides applications the ability to access the services of the
other layers and defines the protocols that applications use to exchange data. There
are many Application layer protocols and new protocols are always being
developed.
The most widely-known Application layer protocols are those used for the
exchange of user information:
 The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is used to transfer files that make
up the Web pages of the World Wide Web.
 The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is used for interactive file transfer.
 The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is used for the transfer of mail
messages and attachments.
 Telnet, a terminal emulation protocol, is used for logging on remotely to
network hosts.
Additionally, the following Application layer protocols help facilitate the use and
management of TCP/IP networks:
 The Domain Name System (DNS) is used to resolve a host name to an IP
address.
 The Routing Information Protocol (RIP) is a routing protocol that routers use
to exchange routing information on an IP internetwork.
 The Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is used between a
network management console and network devices (routers, bridges,
intelligent hubs) to collect and exchange network management information.
 Network Topologies
 Network topology is the arrangement of the various elements (links, nodes,
etc.) of a computer network. Essentially, it is the topological structure of a
network and may be depicted physically or logically.
 Physical topology is the placement of the various components of a network,
including device location and cable installation, while logical topology
illustrates how data flows within a network, regardless of its physical design.
Distances between nodes, physical interconnections, transmission rates, or
signal types may differ between two networks, yet their topologies may be
identical.

 Example:
 Local area network (LAN): Any given node in the LAN has one or more
physical links to other devices in the network; graphically mapping these
links results in a geometric shape that can be used to describe the physical
topology of the network. Conversely, mapping the data flow between the
components determines the logical topology of the network
 There are two basic categories of network topologies: physical topologies
and logical topologies.
 The cabling layout used to link devices is the physical topology of the
network. This refers to the layout of cabling, the locations of nodes, and the
interconnections between the nodes and the cabling.
 The physical topology of a network is determined by the capabilities of the
network access devices and media, the level of control or fault tolerance
desired, and the cost associated with cabling or telecommunications circuits.
 The logical topology in contrast, is the way that the signals act on the
network media, or the way that the data passes through the network from
 one device to the next without regard to the physical interconnection of the
devices.
 A network's logical topology is not necessarily the same as its physical
topology. For example, the original twisted pair Ethernet using repeater hubs
was a logical bus topology with a physical star topology layout. Token Ring
is a logical ring topology, but is wired as a physical star from the Media
Access Unit.
 The logical classification of network topologies generally follows the same
classifications as those in the physical classifications of network topologies
but describes the path that the data takes between nodes being used as
opposed to the actual physical connections between nodes.
 The logical topologies are generally determined by network protocols as
opposed to being determined by the physical layout of cables, wires, and
network devices or by the flow of the electrical signals, although in many
cases the paths that the electrical signals take between nodes may closely
match the logical flow of data, hence the convention of using the terms
logical topology and signal topology interchangeably.
 Logical topologies are often closely associated with Media Access Control
methods and protocols. Logical topologies are able to be dynamically
reconfigured by special types of equipment such as routers and switches.

What is Internet Protocol (IP)?

 IP (short for Internet Protocol) specifies the technical format of packets and
the addressing scheme for computers to communicate over a network. Most
networks combine IP with a higher-level protocol called Transmission
Control Protocol (TCP), which establishes a virtual connection between a
destination and a source.
 IP by itself can be compared to something like the postal system. It allows
you to address a package and drop it in the system, but there's no direct link
 between you and the recipient. TCP/IP, on the other hand, establishes a
connection between two hosts so that they can send messages back and forth
for a period of time.

Internet Protocol Versions

 There are currently two version of Internet Protocol (IP): IPv4 and a new
version called IPv6. IPv6 is an evolutionary upgrade to the Internet Protocol.
IPv6 will coexist with the older IPv4 for some time.
The Difference Between IPv6 and IPv4 IP Addresses
 An IP address is binary numbers but can be stored as text for human
readers. For example, a 32-bit numeric address (IPv4) is written in decimal
as four numbers separated by periods. Each number can be zero to 255. For
example, 1.160.10.240 could be an IP address.
 IPv6 addresses are 128-bit IP address written in hexadecimal and separated
by colons. An example IPv6 address could be written like this:
3ffe:1900:4545:3:200:f8ff:fe21:67cf
Client/server architecture
 The client–server model of computing is a distributed computing structure
that partitions tasks or workloads between the providers of a resource or
service, called servers, and service requesters, called clients. Often clients
and servers communicate over a computer network on separate hardware,
but both client and server may reside in the same system. A server host runs
one or more server programs which share their resources with clients. A
client does not share any of its resources, but requests a server's content or
service function. Clients therefore initiate communication sessions with
servers which await incoming requests.
 Examples of computer applications that use the client–server model are
Email, network printing, and the World Wide Web.
IP Addresses
To keep all of the machines on the Internet straight, each machine is
assigned a unique address called an IP address. IP stands for Internet protocol, and
these addresses are 32-bit numbers normally expressed as four "octets" in a "dotted
decimal number." A typical IP address looks like this: 64.233.167.99
The four numbers in an IP address are called octets because they can have values
between 0 and 256 (28 possibilities per octet).
 Every machine on the Internet has its own IP address. A server has a static
IP address that does not change very often. A home machine that is dialing up
through a modem often has an IP address that is assigned by the ISP when you dial
in. That IP address is unique for your session and may be different the next time
you dial in. In this way, an ISP only needs one IP address for each modem it
supports, rather than for every customer.
Domain Names
If we had to remember the IP addresses of all of the Web sites we visit every
day, we would all go nuts. Human beings just are not that good at remembering
strings of numbers. We are good at remembering words, however, and that is
where domain names come in. You probably have hundreds of domain names
stored in your head. For example:
 www.bravenet.com - a typical name
 www.mit.edu - a popular EDU name
 encarta.msn.com - a Web server that does not start with www
 www.bbc.co.uk - a name using four parts rather than three
The COM, EDU and UK portions of these domain names are called the top-
level domain or first-level domain. There are several hundred top-level domain
names, including COM, EDU, GOV, MIL, NET, ORG and INT, as well as unique
two-letter combinations for every country.
Within every top-level domain there is a huge list of second-level domains. For
example, in the COM first-level domain, you've got:
 bravenet
 msn
 microsoft
 plus millions of others...
Every name in the COM top-level domain must be unique, but there can be
duplication across domains.
How Routers Works
 A router is a networking device that forwards data packets between
computer networks. A router is connected to two or more data lines from
different networks (as opposed to a network switch, which connects data
lines from one single network).
 When a data packet comes in on one of the lines, the router reads the address
information in the packet to determine its ultimate destination. Then, using
information in its routing table or routing policy, it directs the packet to the
next network on its journey. This creates an overlay internetwork.
 Routers perform the "traffic directing" functions on the Internet.
 A data packet is typically forwarded from one router to another through the
networks that constitute the internetwork until it reaches its destination node.
 The most familiar type of routers are home and small office routers that
simply pass data, such as web pages, email, IM, and videos between the
home computers and the Internet. An example of a router would be the
owner's cable or DSL router, which connects to the Internet through an ISP.
 More sophisticated routers, such as enterprise routers, connect large business
or ISP networks up to the powerful core routers that forward data at high
speed along the optical fiber lines of the Internet backbone. Though routers
are typically dedicated hardware devices, use of software-based routers has
grown increasingly common.
 A wireless router is a device that performs the functions of a router but also
includes the functions of a wireless access point. It is used to provide access
to the Internet or a private computer network. It can function in a wired LAN
(local area network), in a wireless-only LAN (WLAN), or in a mixed
wired/wireless network, depending on the manufacturer and model.

MULTIMEDIA ON THE INTERNET

 Multimedia entertainment applications aim at diverting users,

engaging them in amazing experiences such as reading a book, listening to
music, enjoying videos, and playing a game.
 Multimedia means using, involving, or encompassing several media.
Classic media are hypertexts, sound, image, video and animation.
 From these standpoints, multimedia entertainment applications aim at
diverting users, engaging them in amazing experiences such as reading a
book, listening to music, enjoying videos, and playing a game. While in the
 past, traditional multimedia entertainment technology offered predominantly
passive experiences,
 such as, video on demand for example, advances in ICT are
promoting a greater interactivity as well as allowing more exciting
immersive experiences to consumers, such as interactive virtual
environments, interactive storytelling and online games. In fact, with the
coming of the Internet era, the network communications have been fueled in
a way not available on any other medium. This fact improved the chance to
interact in real-time with remote applications rather than to sit passively,
bringing online the multimedia entertainment.
 Multimedia technologies provide an important support to
entertainment services with a myriad of coding, access and distribution
alternatives. Anywhere and anytime communication technologies facilitate
entertainment services, while final devices enhance the user experience.
 Unfortunately, a global end-to-end solution “from the producer to the
consumer” involving several media to provide entertainment contents to the
final user does not exist. Yet, the main streams for passing from the
entertainment producer to the final consumer step through the four following
phases shown in Figure 1 and discussed below in isolation.
HOW MUSIC AND AUDIO WORK ON THE INTERNET

 In the early days of streaming media -- the mid-to-late 1990s -- watching videos
and listening to music online wasn't always fun. It was a little like driving in
stop-and-go traffic during a heavy rain. If you had a slow computer or a dial-up
Internet connection, you could spend more time staring at the word "buffering"
 on a status bar than watching videos or listening to songs. On top of that,
everything was choppy, pixilated and hard to see.
 The success of streaming media is pretty recent, but the idea behind it has been
around as long as people have. When someone talks to you, information travels
toward you in the form of a sound wave. Your ears and brain decode this
information, allowing you to understand it.
 This is also what happens when you watch TV or listen to the radio.
Information travels to an electronic device in the form of a cable signal, a
satellite signal or radio waves. The device decodes and displays the signal

HOW REAL PLAYER STREAMING AUDIO WORKS

 Digital Collections Department streamed audio and video can be played
using the RealPlayer. This page describes what you need to view streamed
media and provides solutions for common problems viewing streams with
RealPlayer.
 Do not connect to Northwestern's VPN service while attempting to access
streamed Real content. Users have reported performance issues. If you are
not certain whether or not you are using VPN, consult NU Information
Technology's VPN pages.
 In order to access streamed media from an off campus location, your
network must be fast enough: typically, for audio only, the network must be
capable of a download speed of at least 100 kilobits per second (kbps), and
for video, at least 400 kilobits per second (kbps). If you are not certain how
fast your connection is, contact your internet service provider.
 Other software may affect the speed of your connection and the ability to
access streamed media. If you have a personal firewall installed, or are
simultaneously using other network-intensive software, try disabling them
temporarily.
 You may also wish to consult the Real Customer Support page for playback,
connectivity, and software issues.
HOW MP3 MUSIC FILESWORK
 The MP3 movement is one of the most amazing phenomena that the music
industry has ever seen. Unlike other movements -- for example, the
introduction of the cassette tape or the CD -- the MP3 movement started not
with the industry itself but with a huge audience of music lovers on the
Internet. The MP3 format for digital music has had, and will continue to
have, a huge impact on how people collect, listen to and distribute music.
 Not everyone is happy with the rise in popularity of the MP3 format. Some
audio enthusiasts say that most MP3 files can't compare to a CD or vinyl
album version of the same song. Others go so far as to claim that the way
sound engineers mix music is changing because of MP3s, and not
necessarily in a good way.
HOW INTERNET RADIO BROADCASTING WORKS
 A children’s advocacy group unites its geographically diverse members via
private broadcast. A radio listener hears an ad for a computer printer and
places an order immediately using the same medium on which he heard the
ad. All of this is possible with Internet radio, the latest technological
innovation in radio broadcasting since the business began in the early 1920s.
 Internet radio has been around since the late 1990s. Traditional radio
broadcasters have used the Internet to simulcast their programming. But,
Internet radio is undergoing a revolution that will expand its reach from your
 desktop computer to access broadcasts anywhere, anytime, and expand its
programming from traditional broadcasters to individuals, organizations and
government.
 In this article, we’ll explore the Internet radio revolution in terms of
equipment, transmission, programming and the alterations in the
listener/broadcaster relationship.
HOW IPODS WORK
 Contrary to what many people might think, the answer is yes. Well before
the iPod became a technological and cultural sensation, millions of people
were listening to digital music on their computers. And not just on their
computers—they were listening to music on their portable music devices,
called MP3 players.
 Although the iPod certainly wasn’t the first device for playing digital music,
it changed the way people listened to and purchased music, and became a
part of the cultural landscape. Before the iPod, the people who primarily
listened to digital music ...
How itunes work
 Podcasts usually offer each episode in the same file format, such as audio or
video, so that subscribers can enjoy the program the same way each time.
Some podcasts, such as language courses, include multiple file formats, such
as video and documents, to teach more effectively.
 For podcast listeners, podcasts are a way to enjoy great content from around
the world for free. For podcast publishers, podcasts are a great way to reach
a wide audience.
 Apple does not directly provide podcast updates or episodes. When you
subscribe to a podcast using the Podcasts app for iOS, or using iTunes on
your Mac or PC, you are subscribing to the podcast updates by that
 particular podcast producer. With iCloud, you can synchronize your podcast
subscriptions across all devices.
HOW BIT TORRENT WORKS
 BitTorrent is a protocol that enables fast downloading of large files using
minimum Internet bandwidth. It costs nothing to use and includes no
spyware or pop-up advertising.
 Unlike other download methods, BitTorrent maximizes transfer speed by
gathering pieces of the file you want and downloading these pieces
simultaneously from people who already have them. This process makes
popular and very large files, such as videos and television programs,
download much faster than is possible with other protocols.
 In this article, we'll examine how BitTorrent works and how it is different
from other file-distribution methods. In addition, you'll learn how to use
BitTorrent and what the future might hold for this innovative approach to
serving files over the Internet.
HOW MULTICAST IP AND THE MBONE WORK
 The first thing many researchers like me do when they come to work is read
their email. The second thing on my list is to check what is on the MBone-
the Multicast Backbone, which is a virtual network on "top" of the Internet
providing a multicasting facility to the Internet. There might be video from
the Space Shuttle, a seminar from Xerox, a plenary session from an
interesting conference or a software demonstration for the Swedish prime
minister.
 It all started in March 1992 when the first audiocast on the Internet took
place from the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) meeting in San
Diego. At that event 20 sites listened to the audiocast. Two years later, at the
IETF meeting in Seattle about 567 hosts in 15 countries tuned in to the two
 parallel broadcasting channels (audio and video) and also talked back
(audio) and joined the discussions! The networking community now takes it
for granted that the IETF meetings will be distributed via MBone. MBone
has also been used to distribute experimental data from a robot at the bottom
of the Sea of Cortez (as will be described later) as well as a late Saturday
night feature movie WAX or the Discovery of Television Among the Bees
by David Blair.
 As soon as some crucial tools existed, the usage just exploded. Many people
started using MBone for conferences, weather maps, research experiments,
to follow the Space Shuttle, for example.
 At the Swedish Institute of Computer Science (SICS) we saw our
contribution to the Swedish University Network SUNET, increase from
26GB per month in February 1993 to 69GB per month in March 1993.
 This was mainly due to multicast traffic as SICS at that time was the major
connection point between the U.S. and Europe in MBone.

HOW ANIMATION ON THE WEB WORKS

 When a host wishes to join a multicast group, that is, get packets with a
specific multicast address, the host issues an Internet Group Management
Protocol (IGMP) request. The multicast router for that subnet will then
inform the other routers so that such packets will get to this subnet and
eventually be placed on the localarea network (LAN)
 where the host is connected. Frequently, the local router will poll the hosts
on the LAN if they are still listening to the multicast group. If not, no more
such packets will be placed onto the LAN. When doing multicasting
utilizing MBone, the sender does not know who will receive the packets.
 The sender just sends to an address and it is up to the receivers to join that
group (i.e., multicast address). Another style of multicasting is where the
sender specifies who should receive the multicast.
 This gives more control over the distribution, but one drawback is that it
does not scale well. Having thousands of receivers is almost impossible to
handle this way.
HOW INTRANETS WORK

 When sending the multicast packet through the tunnel, the multicast packets
must be repacked. There are two methods of doing this, adding the Loose
Source and Record Route (LSRR) IP option and encapsulation. The first
implementations of mrouted used the LSRR IP option.
 Mrouted modified the multicast datagram coming from a client by
appending an IP LSRR option where the multicast address was placed. The
IP destination address was set to the (unicast) address of the mrouted on the
other side of the tunnel. There have been some problems with this approach
(as will be described later) that prompted the implementation of
encapsulation.
 In this method the original multicast datagram will be put into the data part
of a normal IP datagram that is addressed to the mrouted on the other side of
the tunnel.
1. The receiving mrouted will strip off the encapsulation and forward the
datagram appropriately. Both these methods are available in the
current implementations.
 Each tunnel has a metric and a threshold. The metric is used for routing and
the threshold to limit the distribution scope for multicast packets.
 The metric specifies a routing cost that is used in the Distance Vector
Multicasting Routing Protocol (DVMRP). To implement the primary and
backup tunnels in Figure 1, the metrics could have been specified as 1 for
the thick tunnels and 3 for the thin tunnel.
 When M1 gets a multicast packet from one of its clients, it will compute the
cheapest path to each of the other M's. The tunnel M1-M3 has a cost of 3,
whereas the cost via the other tunnels is (1 + 1) 2. Hence, the tunnel M1-M3
is normally not used. However, if any of the other tunnels breaks, the backup
M1-M3 will be used. However, since DVMRP is slow on propagating
changes in network topology, rapid changes will be a problem.
 The threshold is the minimum time-to-live (TTL) that a multicast datagram
needs to be forwarded onto a given tunnel.
USING ON INTRANET WITH IN A COMPANY
 There is no "network provider" of the MBone. In the spirit of the Internet,
MBone is loosely coordinated via a mailing list.
 When end users want to connect to MBone, they are encouraged to contact
their network provider. If that network provider is not participating in
MBone and for some reason does not want to, a tunnel can be arranged to
another point in MBone.
 From time to time, there have been major overhauls of the topology as
MBone has grown.
 Usually this has been prompted by an upcoming IETF meeting. These
meetings put a big strain on MBone. The IETF multicast traffic has been
about 100 to 300Kb per second with spikes up to 500Kb per second.

HOW WEB PAGE WORKS

 A web page (or webpage) is a web document that is suitable for the World
Wide Web and the web browser.
 A web browser displays a web page on a monitor or mobile device. The web
page is what displays, but the term also refers to a computer file, usually
written in HTML or comparable markup language. Web browsers coordinate
the various web resource elements for the written web page, such as style
sheets, scripts and images, to present the web page.
 Typical web pages provide hypertext that include a navigation bar or a
sidebar menu to other web pages via hyperlinks, often referred to as links.
 On a network, a web browser can retrieve a web page from a remote web
server. On a higher level, the web server may restrict access to only a private
network such as a corporate intranet or it provides access to the World Wide
Web. On a lower level, the web browser uses the Hypertext Transfer
Protocol (HTTP) to make such requests.
 A static web page is delivered exactly as stored, as web content in the web
server's file system, while a dynamic web page is generated by a web
application that is driven by server-side software or client-side scripting.
How Web Pages Constructed
 Web pages are now an essential part of how many people live their lives and
perform their jobs. More and more computer functions are now moving to
web based applications and it is important that you are familiar with this
technology.
Structure of a Web Page
 You might have made some web sites at secondary school using
WYSIWYG editors such as Front Page and Dreamweaver. For the A-Level
Computing course we are going to take a look at the code that these editors
produce, and how to structure webpages with code. Open this wikibook page
 in any browser and click CTRL+U in Firefox / Chrome or View -> Page
Source in Internet Explorer, you should have the webpage code in front of
you.
 HTML - Hypertext Markup Language, the language used for building web
pages.
 All web pages have the following basic structure:
 HTML - specifies that this is a web page
o Head - contains the title of the page with code and css includes
o Body - displays the main page content
Markup
 HTML markup consists of several key components, including tags (and their
attributes), character-based data types, character references and entity
references. Another important component is the document type declaration,
which triggers standards mode rendering.
 The following is an example of the classic Hello world program, a common
test employed for comparing programming languages, scripting languages
and markup languages.

HTTP
 The World Wide Web is composed primarily of HTML documents
transmitted from web servers to web browsers using the Hypertext Transfer
Protocol (HTTP). However, HTTP is used to serve images, sound, and other
content, in addition to HTML. To allow the web browser to know how to
handle each document it receives, other information is transmitted along
with the document. This meta data usually includes the MIME type (e.g.
text/html or application/xhtml+xml) and the character encoding (see
Character encoding in HTML).
 In modern browsers, the MIME type that is sent with the HTML document
may affect how the document is initially interpreted.
 A document sent with the XHTML MIME type is expected to be well-
formed XML; syntax errors may cause the browser to fail to render it.

HTML e-mail
 Most graphical email clients allow the use of a subset of HTML (often ill-
defined) to provide formatting and semantic markup not available with plain
text.
 This may include typographic information like coloured headings,
emphasized and quoted text, inline images and diagrams.
 Many such clients include both a GUI editor for composing HTML e-mail
messages and a rendering engine for displaying them. Use of HTML in e-
mail is criticized by some because of compatibility issues, because it can
help disguise phishing attacks, because of accessibility issues for blind or
visually impaired people, because it can confuse spam filters and because
the message size is larger than plain text.
Web server
 A web server is an information technology that processes requests via
HTTP, the basic network protocol used to distribute information on the
World Wide Web. The term can refer either to the entire computer system,
an appliance, or specifically to the software that accepts and supervises the
HTTP requests.[1]
HTTP
 Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) response status codes. This includes
codes from IETF internet standards as well as other IETF RFCs, other
specifications and some additional commonly used codes. The first digit of
the status code specifies one of five classes of response; the bare minimum
for an HTTP client is that it recognises these five classes. The phrases used
are the standard examples, but any human-readable alternative can be
provided. Unless otherwise stated, the status code is part of the HTTP/1.1
standard (RFC 7231).
How markup language works
 A markup language is a system for annotating a document in a way that
is syntactically distinguishable from the text.[1] The idea and terminology
evolved from the "marking up" of paper manuscripts, i.e., the revision
instructions by editors, traditionally written with a blue pencil on authors'
manuscripts.
 In digital media this "blue pencil instruction text" was replaced by tags,
that is, instructions are expressed directly by tags or "instruction text
encapsulated by tags." Examples include typesetting instructions such as
those found in troff, TeX and LaTeX, or structural markers such as XML
tags. Markup instructs the software that displays the text to carry out
appropriate actions, but is omitted from the version of the text that users
see.
 Some markup languages, such as the widely used HTML, have pre-
defined presentation semantics—meaning that their specification
prescribes how to present the structured data. Others, such as XML, do
not.
 HyperText Markup Language (HTML), one of the document formats of
the World Wide Web, is an instance of SGML (though, strictly, it does
not comply with all the rules of SGML), and follows many of the markup
conventions used in the publishing industry in the communication of
printed work between authors, editors, and printers.
 Types of markup
 There are three general categories of electronic markup.
 Presentational markup
 The kind of markup used by traditional word-processing systems: binary
codes embedded within document text that produce the WYSIWYG
effect. Such markup is usually hidden from human users, even authors or
editors.
 Procedural markup
 Markup is embedded in text and provides instructions for programs that
are to process the text. Well-known examples include troff, LaTeX, and
PostScript. It is expected that the processor will run through the text from
beginning to end, following the instructions as encountered. Text with
such markup is often edited with the markup visible and directly
manipulated by the author. Popular procedural-markup systems usually
include programming constructs, so macros or subroutines can be defined
and invoked by name.
How URL Works
 When you use the Web or send an e-mail message, you use a domain name
to do it. For example, theUniform Resource Locator (URL)
"http://www.howstuffworks.com" contains the domain name
howstuffworks.com. So does this e-mail address:
[email protected]. Every time you use a domain name, you use
the Internet's DNS servers to translate the human-readable domain name into
the machine-readable IP address. Check out How Domain Name Servers
Work for more in-depth information on DNS.
 Top-level domain names, also called first-level domain names,
include .COM, .ORG, .NET, .EDU and .GOV. Within every top-level
 domain there is a huge list of second-level domains. For example, in
the .COM first-level domain there is:
 HowStuffWorks
 Yahoo
 Microsoft
 Every name in the .COM top-level domain must be unique. The left-most
word, like www, is the host name. It specifies the name of a specific
machine (with a specific IP address) in a domain. A given domain can,
potentially, contain millions of host names as long as they are all unique
within that domain.
 DNS servers accept requests from programs and other name servers to
convert domain names into IP addresses. When a request comes in, the DNS
server can do one of four things with it:
 It can answer the request with an IP address because it already knows the IP
address for the requested domain.
 It can contact another DNS server and try to find the IP address for the name
requested. It may have to do this multiple times.
 It can say, "I don't know the IP address for the domain you requested, but
here's the IP address for a DNS server that knows more than I do."
 It can return an error message because the requested domain name is invalid
or does not exist.
COMMON INTERNET TOOLS
TELNET
 Telnet is a TCP/IP protocol, triggered by user command,that allows you to
access a remote computer. While obtaining files from a remote computer via
FTP is common, Telnet actually goes one step further and allows you to log
on as a regular user of the computer, with access to all data and programs
 that may be installed on that computer. Telnet is usually used for technical
support purposes.
 In the early days of the Internet, Telnet was also used to connect with
something called a free-net, which is just what it sounds like: an open-access
computer system. This was in part because dial up modems were so slow,
whereas Telnet worked a lot faster. With the advent of high speed internet
providers, however, most free-nets have shut down.
How Telnet Works
 Telnet uses software, installed on your computer, to create a connection with
the remote host. The Telnet client (software), at your command, will send a
request to the Telnet server (remote host). The server will reply asking for a
user name and password. If accepted, the Telnet client will establish a
connection to the host, thus making your computer a virtual terminal and
allowing you complete access to the host's computer.
 Telnet requires the use of a user name and password, which means you need
to have previously set up an account on the remote computer. In some cases,
however, computers with Telnet will allow guests to log on with restricted
access.
Understanding How FTP Works
 The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is used to transfer files between two
computers over a network and Internet. In this article we will look at how to
work with a FTP client. Auto FTP Manager is an advanced FTP client that
automates file transfers between your computer and the FTP server.

What is FTP?
 When you want to copy files between two computers that are on the same
local network, often you can simply "share" a drive or folder, and copy the
 files the same way you would copy files from one place to another on your
own PC.

What if you want to copy files from one computer to another that is halfway
around the world? You would probably use your Internet connection.
However, for security reasons, it is very uncommon to share folders over the
Internet. File transfers over the Internet use special techniques, of which one
of the oldest and most widely-used is FTP. FTP, short for"File Transfer
Protocol," can transfer files between any computers that have an Internet
connection, and also works between computers using totally different
operating systems.
Transferring files from a client computer to a server computer is
called "uploading" and transferring from a server to a client
is "downloading".
COMMON GATEWAY INTERFACE
 CGI (Common Gateway Interface) is a standard way of running programs
from a Web server. Often, CGI programs are used to generate pages
dynamically or to perform some other action when someone fills out an
HTML form and clicks the submit button. AOLserver provides full support
for CGI v1.1.
HOW CGI SCRIPTING WORKS
 A reader sends a URL that causes the AOLserver to use CGI to run a
program. The AOLserver passes input from the reader to the program and
output from the program back to the reader. CGI acts as a "gateway"
between the AOLserver and the program you write.
 The program run by CGI can be any type of executable file on the server
platform. For example, you can use C, C++, Perl, Unix shell scripts, Fortran,
 or any other compiled or interpreted language. You can also use Tcl scripts
with CGI, though the extensions to Tcl described in Chapter 5 of
the AOLserver Tcl Developer's Guide are not available through CGI.
 With AOLserver, you have the option of using the embedded Tcl and C
interfaces instead of CGI. Typically, the Tcl and C interfaces provide better
performance than CGI. (See the AOLserver Tcl Developer's Guide for
information on the Tcl interface and the AOLserver C Developer's Guide for
information on the C interface.)
 You may want to use CGI for existing, shareware, or freeware programs that
use the standard CGI input, output, and environment variables. Since CGI is
a standard interface used by many Web servers, there are lots of example
programs and function libraries available on the World Wide Web and by
ftp. This chapter describes the interface and points you to locations where
you can download examples.

HOW FIREWALL WORKS

Firewalls

 Firewalls can be set up to have simple rules such to allow or deny protocols,
ports or IP addresses.
 In the case of a simple attack coming from a small number of unusual IP
addresses for instance, one could put up a simple rule to drop (deny) all
incoming traffic from those attackers.
 More complex attacks will however be hard to block with simple rules: for
example, if there is an ongoing attack on port 80 (web service), it is not
possible to drop all incoming traffic on this port because doing so will
prevent the server from serving legitimate traffic.
 Additionally, firewalls may be too deep in the network hierarchy. Routers
may be affected before the traffic gets to the firewall.
 Nonetheless, firewalls can effectively prevent users from launching simple
flooding type attacks from machines behind the firewall.
 Some stateful firewalls, like OpenBSD's packet filter, can act as a proxy for
connections: the handshake is validated (with the client) instead of simply
forwarding the packet to the destination.
 It is available for other BSDs as well. In that context, it is called "synproxy".
 In computing, a firewall is a network security system that controls the
incoming and outgoing network traffic based on an applied rule set.
 A firewall establishes a barrier between a trusted, secure internal network
and another network (e.g., the Internet) that is assumed not to be secure and
trusted.
 Firewalls exist both as software to run on general purpose hardware and as a
hardware appliance. Many hardware-based firewalls also offer other
functionality to the internal network they protect, such as acting as a DHCP
server for that network.
 Many personal computer operating systems include software-based firewalls
to protect against threats from the public Internet.
 Many routers that pass data between networks contain firewall components
and, conversely, many firewalls can perform basic routing functions.
Web-based Circumventors
 The simplest, and also least effective, thing you can try is a web-based
circumventor. Web-based circumvention systems have the advantage of
being dead simple.
 There's no software to install, just point your browser to the site and see if it
works. These sites work by hiding your web traffic so it can't be intercepted
by third parties (like your boss or her army of IT minions).
 The longtime favorite in this realm was Anonymizer, but the site has since
discontinued its web-based service.
 Instead try Anonymouse.org or The Cloak. Both are free, but bear in mind
that your data, while anonymous, still shows up as web traffic when viewed
by the admins on your corporate network.
 The other chief disadvantage of these services is that many websites which
require secure user authentication (webmail, Facebook, etc.) may not work
properly. Also bear in mind that SSL is often not available.
Web-based Proxies
 A more sophisticated approach is to use a web-based proxy. CGIProxy is
popular perl script that can act as an HTTP or FTP proxy.
 The site Peacefire offers a tool named Circumventor which wraps an
automated installer program around CGIProxy making it easy for non-
technical users to set up the script.
 Glype is another web-based proxy, written in PHP, it provides the same
service. It's supposed to be faster than CGIProxy and it's quite easy to install.
 Another trick that sometimes works is to use Google's language translation
service as a web proxy. Due to way the translation service is configured, it
works as a proxy already.
 The trick is to tell it to convert from English to English (or your native
language). The URL will look like this http://www.google.com/translate?
langpair=en|en&u=www.dontgohere.com, where dontgohere.com is the site
you want to see.

VIRUS
 A computer virus is a malware program that, when executed, replicates by
inserting copies of itself (possibly modified) into other computer programs,
data files, or the boot sector of the hard drive; when this replication
succeeds, the affected areas are then said to be "infected".
 Viruses often perform some type of harmful activity on infected hosts, such
as stealing hard disk space or CPU time, accessing private information,
corrupting data, displaying political or humorous messages on the user's
screen, spamming their contacts, or logging their keystrokes.
 However, not all viruses carry a destructive payload or attempt to hide
themselves—the defining characteristic of viruses is that they are self-
replicating computer programs which install themselves without user
consent.
 Virus writers use social engineering and exploit detailed knowledge of
security vulnerabilities to gain access to their hosts' computing resources.
The vast majority of viruses target systems running Microsoft Windows,
employing a variety of mechanisms to infect new hosts,and often using
complex anti-detection/stealth strategies to evade antivirus software.
ANTI-VIRUS
 Antivirus or anti-virus software (often abbreviated as AV), sometimes
known as anti-malware software, is computer software used to prevent,
detect and remove malicious software.
 Antivirus software, if properly installed on a computer system, can prevent
access to computer systems by unwanted computer programs.
 Viruses, worms or Trojan Horses can be used by criminals or mischievous
people (called Crackers).
 They can be used to steal information or damage computer systems. If no
antivirus software is installed, hackers may be able to access the information
in the computer.
 Antivirus software was originally developed to detect and remove computer
viruses, hence the name. However, with the proliferation of other kinds of
malware, antivirus software started to provide protection from other
computer threats. In particular, modern antivirus software can protect from:
malicious Browser Helper Objects (BHOs), browser hijackers, ransomware,
keyloggers, backdoors, rootkits, trojan horses, worms, malicious LSPs,
dialers, fraudtools, adware and spyware.
 Some products also include protection from other computer threats, such as
infected and malicious URLs, spam, scam and phishing attacks, online
 identity (privacy), online banking attacks, social engineering techniques,
Advanced Persistent Threat (APT), botnets, DDoS attacks.
 Most tests and experts claim that antivirus software is unable to prevent all
attacks.There are many different types of antivirus software.
 Many Antivirus programs can be downloaded for free. These versions
usually have some features missing. The missing features are only available
to those who buy the "full" version.

DANGERS OF WIRELESS NETWORK

 Nearly half of home wi-fi networks can be hacked in less than five seconds,
according to a new study.
 In an 'ethical hacking' experiment conducted across six UK cities, nearly
40,000 networks were revealed as high-risk, opening up the personal data of
thousands of individuals.
 Ethical hacker Jason Hart travelled within the main arterial routes of each
city within a four-mile radius, using basic 'wardriving' equipment.
 The aim was to identify networks that emanated wireless signals excessively
into a public place, but he did not connect to any of these networks or crack
any associated passwords.

 According to the findings, nearly a quarter of private wireless networks has

no password whatsoever attached, making them immediately accessible to
criminals.
 This is despite majority (82 per cent) of Brits mistakenly thinking their
network is secure. And even password-protected networks are not secure. A
typical password can be breached by hackers in a matter of seconds.

 Hacking into a private network not only allows unscrupulous individuals to

'cloak' criminal activities such as purchasing illegal pornography or selling
on stolen goods.
 It also allows them to view the private transactions made by individuals over
the network, accessing passwords and usernames which can then be used to
impersonate the victim and commit identity fraud and other illegal activity.
Worryingly, only one in 20 people knows for certain that their network has
been used without their permission, indicating that the vast majority remain
ignorant of the risk.

 The study also reveals the dangers of accessing the internet over publicly
available networks. In order to review the potential issues around public
hotspots, Jason used a portable wireless network router to attract users to
connect with their wireless devices to see whether they would trust existing
wireless connections and understand what potential information they were
exposing.
 While nearly one in five wireless users (16 per cent) say they regularly use
public networks, hackers were able to 'harvest' usernames and passwords
from unsuspecting people at a rate of more than 350 an hour, sitting in town-
centre coffee shops and restaurants.
 In addition, the experiment showed that more than 200 people
unsuspectingly logged onto a fake wi-fi network over the course of an hour,
putting themselves at risk from fraudsters who could harvest their personal
and financial information.

COOKIES
o A HTTP cookie (also called web cookie, Internet cookie, browser
cookie or simply cookie, the latter which is not to be confused with
the literal definition), is a small piece of data sent from a website and
stored in a user's web browser while the user is browsing that website.
o Every time the user loads the website, the browser sends the cookie
back to the server to notify the website of the user's previous activity.
o Cookies were designed to be a reliable mechanism for websites to
remember stateful information (such as items in a shopping cart) or to
record the user's browsing activity (including clicking particular
buttons, logging in, or recording which pages were visited by the user
as far back as months or years ago).
o Although cookies cannot carry viruses, and cannot install malware on
the host computer, tracking cookies and especially third-party tracking
cookies are commonly used as ways to compile long-term records of
individuals' browsing histories—a potential privacy concern that
prompted European and U.S. law makers to take action in 2011.
o Cookies can also store passwords and form content a user has
previously entered, such as a credit card number or an address.
o Other kinds of cookies perform essential functions in the modern web.
Perhaps most importantly, authentication cookies are the most
common method used by web servers to know whether the user is
logged in or not, and which account they are logged in with.
o Without such a mechanism, the site would not know whether to send a
page containing sensitive information, or require the user to
authenticate themselves by logging in.
o The security of an authentication cookie generally depends on the
security of the issuing website and the user's web browser, and on
whether the cookie data is encrypted. Security vulnerabilities may
allow a cookie's data to be read by a hacker, used to gain access to
user data, or used to gain access (with the user's credentials) to the
website to which the cookie belongs.